“ ‘Deems it prudent,’ ” Van said as Rebbe Davison slammed the book shut. Then Van repeated his sour words, louder this time. They echoed under the rafters, against the walls of books. “ ‘Deems it prudent’! For how long will we live like children because the Council says they know what’s best for us?”
All around me the men and women nodded, murmured words of assent. Mar Schneider even pumped his wrinkled old hand through the air. I felt something alien. My chest flooded with a wave of excitement. For the first time in my life, I wanted to nod, shout, pump my fist too.
“They picked our jobs for us! They choose where we live. And if we drag our feet too much, they’ll even choose who we love.”
“Yeah,” Koen said. I studied his features. His broad mouth was open, the corners lifted in breathless excitement.
Liberty on Earth . . . The words rattled around my brain. I could feel them against my tongue like some sort of honey treat.
For the very first time I understood what they truly meant.
“It’s even up to them if we live in the dome or walk free on Zehava,” I said, but too low. At first I didn’t think that anyone heard me over the jumble of agitated conversation. But Van’s sharp ears practically pricked up at the sound of my voice. He turned toward me.
“Terra Fineberg,” he said, smiling slyly. “What did you say?”
I felt my face flush. But I wasn’t afraid of Van. I lifted my chin, looking squarely at him. “Mara Stone told me that if the Council decides we can’t live on Zehava, then they’ll pilot the dome to the surface and we’ll continue to live inside it.”
There was a sudden frenzy of dismayed conversation.
“That can’t be!” cried Mar Schneider. Beside me, Koen’s mouth fell open in disbelief. But from the sofa in the corner, Laurel spoke up.
“It’s true,” she said. “They’ve given each of the pilots a course in dome flight. It’s the only possible answer. Why else would they destroy the probe results?”
Van stared. His lips were set firmly, taking it all in. “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” he said. He sounded as if he couldn’t quite believe that this news had passed him by. He beckoned us toward him. “Terra, Laurel, please come speak to me.” Then he looked out to the rest of the crowd.
“That’s all for tonight, folks.” He touched two fingers to his heart. “Liberty on Earth.”
A chorus of voices lifted toward him. I was surprised to find my own voice joining in. “Liberty on Zehava!”
• • •
After the meeting Koen and I waited on one of the sofas while Van spoke in hushed tones to Laurel Selberlicht. Most of the other citizens had left already, though Rebbe Davison continued to chatter on with a pair of men by the stairwell, the book of contracts tucked under his arm. I watched him for a long time. His hands flashed through the air in excitement, just like they had when he’d lectured us in school.
“I can’t believe Rebbe Davison is part of all of this,” I said. Koen sat forward, his hands folded beneath his chin.
“Hmm?”
“Rebbe Davison. You know, our teacher? Who taught us everything there is to know about being a good citizen?”
“Oh, yeah,” Koen said, letting out a burst of awkward laughter. “I guess it is weird. Never thought of it before.”
I frowned at him, following the line of his eyes. They were fixed on Van. The librarian had at long last dismissed Laurel, who touched her fingers to her heart before she hustled down the stairs. Now he collapsed in a nearby armchair. He didn’t so much sit in the leather seat as sprawl, his limbs forming weird angles: one leg over the chair’s arm, one muscular arm over the chair’s back.
“So, Terra?” he called to me. “Is it true?”
I marched toward him, my chin angled up and firm. It felt good to know something that Van Hoftstadter didn’t.
“That’s what Mara Stone told me. If conditions on Zehava aren’t favorable for our settlement—or if the Council says they’re not—we’re to stay within the dome.”
“Hmm,” Van said, the corner of his mouth twitching. “And we can believe Stone? She has made it abundantly clear she’s not one of us.”
“She’s not one of them, either,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Koen rake his fingers awkwardly through his hair.
“Mar Fineberg did say not to trust her,” Koen said.
“Well,” Van said, at last sitting up straight, resting his elbows on his knees as he regarded me, “our leaders will appreciate this information.”
“Who are the leaders of the Children of Abel, anyway?” I asked.
“That’s a dangerous question to ask,” Van said. He narrowed his eyes down to slivers.
I blanched. “Sorry,” I said, turning toward the stairs to leave before Van noticed how pink my cheeks had become. But then I saw that Koen hadn’t moved to follow.
“Are you coming?”
I watched as a faint blush blossomed across the bridge of his nose too.
“I need to talk to Van about something,” he said.
“Suit yourself.”
Koen squatted on the ground in front of Van, murmuring to him in low tones. I hustled toward the stairs. But Rebbe Davison stopped me before I could make my way down the spiraling staircase.
“Terra,” he said. I felt an old familiar fondness in his gaze. This was my teacher—he’d watched me grow up, hadn’t he? A smile lifted my lips.
“Hello, Rebbe Davison,” I said. He let out a soft laugh.
“You’re an adult now. Call me Mordecai.”
“Mordecai,” I repeated, though the name felt uncertain on my tongue.
“I’m so glad you’re here with us,” he said. Then he looked down at the book he clutched between his fingers. He pressed it into my hands. “Here, take this.”
“A history of the ship’s contracts?” I asked, wrinkling my nose as I flipped through it. The pages were as thin as an onion skin and nearly as translucent. Black, blurry text covered them.
“A bit dry,” Rebbe Davison admitted with a reluctant smile. “But perhaps you’ll find some inspiration in it.”
Before I turned down the stairs, Rebbe Davison touched two fingers to his heart.
“Liberty on Earth,” he said. I held the book to my chest.
“Liberty on Zehava,” I said proudly back.
• • •
I stayed up late that night, Pepper dozing across my ankles. I balanced the heavy book of contracts over my head, leafing through the pages until all the blood drained from my arms. My hands went cold. My ears were filled with the steady, nearly silent buzz of my bedroom lights. Still, I read.
Every contract was longer than the one before it. Each new article was initialed by the hand of the ship’s captain down through the ages. And every one expanded the powers of the Council. In school, history seemed like a straight line, running from the original passengers right down to us. Rebbe Davison had made it sound like there hadn’t ever been a hiccup. He had always taught us that once we landed, life would continue, confined and regimented, as it always had.
I supposed that he never really believed it. Because it was right there, in the pages of that heavy book. The truth was written in the first version of the contract, and the second, and the third. Article 4.12. The dissolution of the vocation system upon arrival on Epsilon Eridani S/2179 D, ensuring that our descendants, in full acknowledgment of their liberties, may explore for themselves the potential of their new home and their new lives. Or Article 9.14. The restoration of reproductive rights. So that our descendants may reclaim their full biological potential and multiply and bear children, or not, according to both their wishes and their needs. The script was tiny and square, but clear.
Sometime near the start of the new day, I rose from my bed. Pepper gave a meow of protest, then stretched, exposing his white belly to me. I smiled at him through my exhaustion, but I didn’t stop to lace my fingers through his silky fur. Instead I walked to my desk and sat
down, opening my sketchbook to the first blank page.
“Who would I be if it weren’t for the Asherah?” I wrote in jagged, loopy script. “Who did my ancestors want me to be?”
And then, with my inky pen, I sketched myself—my eyes, wide set with heavy lids; the slightly off-kilter line of my nose; my thin mouth; the long line of my neck. But I didn’t know what to draw around me. What kind of world would I live on soon? I had no idea. For all I knew, it would be the same world. The sky above me would be shaded by the same dome, even if it was nestled beneath an alien sun.
With my pen I drew hashmarks. Jagged lines. Shadows all around me, impenetrable, inscrutable.
• • •
I streamed into the lab, hoping that Mara wouldn’t notice my late arrival. No such luck. As soon as I dropped my bag beside my work desk, her voice called out to me.
“You’re late, Fineberg,” she said, hardly looking up from her work ledger. Mara’s gaze was as chilly as the ice that now coated the dome rivers in thin sheets. I felt the determined line of my mouth soften.
“What would you like me to do today?” I finally asked.
She had me doing slide prep—slicing leaf samples down into translucent slivers and fixing them onto the tiny slips of glass. It was exacting work, and I couldn’t steady my hand that morning. In fact, my mind raced, swarmed with words.
As I set out another tiny rectangle of glass, listening to the hum of the lights overhead, I thought about how our society had survived these five hundred years. By swallowing our lumps and doing what we were told. Even if it bored us—even if we hated it. I used my eyedropper to squeeze out a bead of fixative onto the slide. Then I lifted my blade again.
I wasn’t looking at my hands or the leaf shredded to pieces beneath them. Perhaps that’s why I sank the razor blade right down the side of my index finger.
Pain burned its way toward my bone. I let out a cry, doing my best to close the wound with the hem of my lab coat. But blood had already begun to gush out.
“Terra?” Mara called. In a moment she was beside me, her eyebrows lifted. Beneath her usual veneer of impatience, she was actually concerned. She pried my fingers away, revealing a thin cut that ran from the side of my knuckle to the tip of my index finger. “Put pressure on it. I’ll get a bandage.”
Mara wandered off to her desk. She seemed to be taking her time rummaging through it, whistling to herself. Finally she returned with a glass bottle of antiseptic and an adhesive bandage.
“Let’s see,” she urged, easing my hand away again. She splashed the antiseptic over it, and I drew in a sharp breath. But when I looked up, Mara was grinning.
“That wasn’t so bad,” she said as she wrapped it. I watched the blood pool beneath the surface of the bandage, congealing in a brownish, squished-down spot.
“Easy for you to say,” I said. I could feel how Mara studied me.
“Terra,” she said at last, “you’re not your usually sunny self this morning.” I glowered at her. But she was unperturbed. “You know, I heard there was a little gathering last night. In the library, hmm?”
I felt the blood drain from my hands. Even the cut seemed to throb a little less.
“How did you hear about that?”
Mara waved her hand through the air. “They invited me. They always do. I keep saying no, but they just never get the picture.”
I didn’t know what to say. But apparently Mara didn’t expect me to say a thing. In a delicate tone she just rambled on.
“You need to understand,” she said, “that historically there have been many rebellions. On Earth there were the peasant uprisings of France. The American revolts—three civil wars could be blamed on revolutionaries there, in fact. There were the Jacobite Risings. The Boxer Rebellion. The Indian Mutiny of 1857. So it’s unsurprising that we’ve seen uprisings on the Asherah. One might say that such acts are a part of human nature. Like teenagers”—she made no effort to conceal the laughter that hid beneath her cool expression—“we all must eventually rise up against our parents.”
I just stared at her, still holding my injured hand out in front of me.
“It’s happened on the ship several times. The largest was the uprising that coincided with the deactivation of the ship’s engines. That was . . . a dark time in the Asherah’s history. Without the sound of the ship’s engines to drive them, many passengers felt lost. For the first time in their lives, they saw how empty their lives were. You know, before the uprising all marriages were chosen by the Council, as vocations are today.”
“I know,” I said. But I couldn’t imagine it. At least Koen and I got along, mostly.
Even if he still wouldn’t kiss me.
“Terra . . .” Mara spoke carefully.
“Yeah?”
She let out a deep sigh. “In the event that your tardiness this morning does indeed have something to do with the Children of Abel . . .” My ears pricked up at the name, but I did my best not to let it show. I only kept my mouth tight. “You should know that every single time they’ve approached me, I’ve turned them down.”
“Oh.” I was still being careful to look disinterested.
“They know of my feelings about child rearing and marriage. I can’t imagine why anyone would be interested in such things, but you know how gossip travels through these halls.”
I nodded.
“I always tell them that Mara Stone’s never been much of a joiner. Movements are for people who can’t move themselves, that’s what I’ve always said.”
She cocked her head to one side, looking at me for a long moment. It was the sort of scrutiny that would have normally made me blush—but I was too spent for that. “Really, I’d expect no different from you. You are my talmid, after all. P. pungens?”
I squinted at her. She held her palm out. “The Picea pungens sample, Terra. You know, some of us still have work to do.”
I turned to one of the long boxes of finished slides that waited on my desk. As I ran my finger along the glass edge, I heard Mara make a strange noise—a rumble low in her throat, like she was trying to get it clear but couldn’t.
“Funny thing,” she said. It seemed she spoke more to herself than she did to me. “I can’t remember the name of the woman who first asked me to join the Children of Abel. I do remember the smell of her, all yeasty. And there was flour on her shirt. I believe she was a baker. Yes, that’s right. A baker. Now, what was her name? You know, it’s been years since I last saw her. I wonder whatever became of her.”
I swallowed hard, but it didn’t do anything for the lump in my throat as I handed Mara her slide.
“Oh, well,” she said, taking it from me. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter now. Does it, Terra?” Though the words seemed casual, her gaze was piercing, pointed. Like she was sharing a secret with me.
That’s when the pieces fell into place. The journal. Mar Jacobi. The bakery. Mara’s words.
Momma was a Child of Abel. A rebel. Like me.
“No, it doesn’t matter,” I said quickly, and though my lips lifted in a giddy, exhausted smile, we both ignored it. “It doesn’t matter at all.”
14
A few nights later I came home to an empty house. I couldn’t be sure where Abba had gone—out drinking or wandering the streets. But I was relieved to find our quarters silent and peaceful. I’d just begun fixing Pepper his dinner when a knock came at the door.
It was Koen. When I saw him standing in the doorway, his smile broad, I felt my heart swell in my chest.
“I have something for you,” he said, and held the journal out to me. I snatched it from him, and hugged it to myself. Then I laughed a little. I must have looked foolish, clutching the leather book to me like it contained the spirit of my mother in its pages.
“Thank you,” I said sheepishly. “Would you like to come in?”
My pulse raced as I said it. Now that we shared the rebellion between us, I wondered if Koen would finally take me in his arms, touching his lips to
mine. He glanced into the dark galley behind me.
“Sure,” he said.
We went up into my room together. Pepper soon appeared, wrapping himself around Koen’s ankles. I waited in the doorway to see where Koen would sit. Maybe he would settle into the nest of tangled sheets on my bed. If he did, I would sit down beside him and press my leg against his. But, to my disappointment, he sat in my desk chair instead. I tried not to sigh as I sat on the end of my bed alone, drawing my knees up against my chest.
“So what is that?” he asked, pointing to the journal that he’d carried for me across the dome. My fingers caressed the smooth leather cover.
“Van didn’t tell you?”
At this, Koen flushed lightly, scratching at the back of his neck. “Um, no. I didn’t ask him.”
“It belonged to one of my ancestors. She was one of the first passengers, but she wasn’t like the signers we learned about in school. She was an agitator.”
“Like us!” Koen exclaimed, his grin broadening. I couldn’t help but smile back at him. I had liked the way it felt to chant along with the fieldworkers in the library, to touch my hands to my heart in salute and have it mean something for once.
“Yeah,” I said. “She wouldn’t have been happy to know that five hundred years down the line we still live under the Council’s thumb.”
“Can I see it?”
I passed it to him. He began to fan the pages, but then a scrap of paper that had been pressed between the cover and the first page fell out. It fluttered to the floor. Koen bent to pick it up.
“That’s Van’s handwriting,” he said, frowning. He handed it back to me.
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